Media streaming, such as IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) is gaining interest lately. IPTV allows the use of well defined IP networks for streaming, which allows the reuse of many positive aspects of streaming over the Internet. For example, Open IPTV Forum (OIPF) proposes the use of SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) for session initiation and session termination. There are often high capacity streaming resources available using existing cable television networks.
However, since IPTV and cable television networks use different signaling and streaming protocols, the IPTV system is not easily integrated with the cable television networks and vice versa.